Objective: To assess whether in children with asthma dental caries occurs more frequently and is more advanced than in healthy children of the same age.
Material and methods: The investigations were carried out in 64 patients suffering from asthma aged from 8 to 16 years. The control group consisted of 64 healthy children. The medium period of duration of the illness is 10 years and the mean time of treatment is 7 years. The clinical examination of the mouth was carried out in accordance with WHO guidelines. The results were analyzed taking into account the division of patients into 2 subgroups: with mixed and permanent dentition. Statistical analysis was performed using StatSoft's Statistica 7.0 software, using the Mann-Whitney U and Fisher test.
Results: In the subgroup of permanent dentition the frequency of decay was 87.80% in asthmatics and 82.92% in the control group (no statistical significance p>0.05), and caries intensity was 6.0 and 4.9 respectively. Statistical analysis showed a significant difference in the intensity of caries between the total two groups of patients examined (p=0.02) and between the groups of girls in this subgroup (p=0.00). In the subgroup with mixed dentition, there was no statistically significant difference in the frequency and the intensity of caries between patients and the control s (p>0.05).
Conclusion: Permanent teeth caries is more severe in children with asthma than in the control group. These patients must be considered as high caries risk and should have special dental care.